My keyboard is driving me crazypp!!!

For some reason my laptop kepyboard types "Pps"Pp randomly. I haven't edited this post at all to show you what I'm dealing with. If I press the upp arrow, "p's" show up. If I do a capitol P a small Pp sometimes shows upp. PIf I typpe a lopwercase pp then sometimes it doubles it. See.

Hard to read? I wrote a press release for Journal Modiste and sppent almost as much time editing out the p's as I did writing it.

I want to find an answer to this. We bought this laptop one year ago at Costco so it shouldn't be dead yet. My husband's answer is to buy a new one ;)P, however my life is on this lapptopp and I don't want to transfer it all over to a new one.

If anyone has a solution to this pproblem, it would be greatly apppreciated. We have a Compaq Presario V4000.

Thank you and Namaste.P

Uh-oh

Uh-oh, I'm starting to have that feeling again. It's been happening more frequently and the idea isn't so abhorrent to me anymore. I look at those sweet pictures and those tiny clothes and think - just maybe. When all the kids are in the room with me I still look around for the missing child. Brian admitted he did it too.

Up until a few weeks ago I didn't want another child. Graedon has been a hard kid to deal with. Very needy and whiney. I didn't have as much time to just devote to him as I had home-schooling, housework and three websites to keep up. So I felt a little resentful everytime he wanted me to carry him around. Yes - I do feel guilty about it. Now that he crawls off to play and squirms when I pick him up to smother him with kisses.

So I'm working out again and trying to lose the last 15lbs so I can be a my pre-pregnancy weight. I always gain 50lbs with each pregnancy and always lose it within the first year. Not this time, lol. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30's. At least that is what I tell myself.

So maybe one of these days our "phantom child" will be a reality and we will be the proud parents of 6 kids. Better start saving for a new bus van.

If bugs aren't your thing - DON'T LOOK

Brian, my darling husband, decided it would be cool to get our 8 year old daughter a pair of praying mantis cocoons for her birthday. I thought he had flipped. I can think of nicer things to get our daughter than that. She however was delighted and started planning on how she would house them upstairs in her bedroom. Um - no. Maddie wasn't going for it and neither was I.

Well, hatched they did this week. I was wholly unprepared for how many of them came out of that little cocoon. It was fascinating in a totally disgusting way.

Here they are - don't look if you are squeamish.

The proud mama.

Just saying...

Have you ever tripped your child so they would fall down and cry so you could have an excuse to end a never-ending phone conversation? You haven't. Oh, neither have I.

Overheard at my house today...

Lyrics courtesy of Lauren (my oldest).

Sung to the tune of Disney's Beauty and the Beast "Be Our Guest".

Be our feast
Be our feast
We will cook you for the beast
We will cook you up and eat you
And the next day he'll reheat you

For his supper tomorrow
Now my darling do not sorrow
For you are going to be our dinner.

I'm so proud.

Our bathroom after (or is there really an "after")

4 months after we moved in our bathroom is almost finished. We still need to finish building shelves in the closet behind the door and get some art work or decor in there. But here it is so far.

We added beadboard to the walls as well as some really great mouldings. The bathroom is painted a nice blue color [FYI don't paint your bathroom green. It makes you look ill. Not that we would know ;)]

This mirror is by American Standard - the Standard Collection and it was a splurge. But we loved it and no other mirror would do. The middle section is a recessed medicine chest and the side mirror swivel. The pedestal sink is by American Standard as well as all the fixtures. We really like the quality and they were reasonably priced.

The hanging pottey seat is temporary until our little one can use the potty on her own.

Art noveau/deco shower curtain from Pottery Barn. Found on eBay.

Our favorite thing in the bathroom - our hex tile floor. Brian and I did it ourselves with no tiling experience whatever. We consulted a lot of websites. It turned out really nice and adds a warmth to the room.

Our bathroom before

The bathroom when we moved in was ugly and not functional at all. Our house was a rental and the previous tenant was wheelchair bound. The landlord ripped out the nice vintage cast iron tub and replaced it with a roll-in shower. Fortunately they left the tub in the garage (probably because it was to heavy to move anywhere else).

The bathroom was completely covered with wood paneling. They added this lovely built in sink/cabinet. We knew that it had to go.


I had plans to paint the walls and remove the cabinents. We didn't really think we would have to gut the whole bathroom. Just remove the shower insert and plop in the old tub. Easy right? When we pulled the shower insert out we discover lath and plaster. So we kept removing plaster and then realized we would have to remove the ceiling as well.

After Brian pulled out the sink and took down the mirror, we discovered a space for a recessed medicine chest and built in shelves. Pretty neat! It was also obvious that there had been a pedestal sink at one time. Perfect as we were intending on putting one back in.

Down to the lath and plaster walls.

The ceiling. When we pulled back the vinyl flooring we found really neat pink/peach tile with a black border all the way around the bathroom. It was Hermosa by Gladding McBean & Co and was probably laid down in the 30's. Really high quality tile. We really wanted to keep the tile but it was in bad shape.